A Villa Far From Rome by Sheila Finch

Author:Sheila Finch [Finch, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hadley Rille Books
Published: 2017-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The meeting he’d planned with sheep-herders didn’t start well. He hadn’t expected it to be easy, but sullen silence was harder to deal with than argument. There was always a certain amount of friendly rivalry between cattle folk as his family had traditionally been and sheep folk, but he sensed a more serious undercurrent here. He’d spent several days riding from one argumentative group to another, sullen with grievances.

The herders sat in a circle around the fire which the wife of the chief among the herders had built against the chill that arrived with a heavy rain, and the small house was thick with the smell of burning peat and unwashed bodies crowded together. An honest smell, one he much preferred to the perfumes Antonia had been wearing since her visit with Gracila. He knew most of them by sight if not all of them by name; he’d always made it his purpose to know his own people. The chief herder, he remembered now, as the older man gazed across the fire at him, was the brother of Epilus who’d become his enemy on the Council of Elders. They shared the same hooded eyes full of barely concealed aggression.

A young woman brought him the cup of wheat beer. Acknowledging his rank, she left it with him instead of waiting for him to drink then passing it on to the next man. He thought of Gallus and his love of Celtic beer; for himself, he would’ve preferred a Roman wine.

“This is no easy sacrifice I ask of you.” He gazed in particular at the younger men, the ones he knew were most resistant. “It sounds much more heroic to take up knives and cudgels and defy the Roman tax collectors. But I would remind you of the lesson Boudicca learned, that the legions have swords and far-flying arrows and catapults hurling iron balls and battle chariots. I saw this myself. We Regni – farmers and herdsmen and craftsmen – stand to lose our lives in futile rebellion.”

He thought of the potters he’d visited yesterday, a woman and her two daughters, too busy to give him their undivided attention, their stolid, expressionless faces sweaty from the heat of the kiln. He remembered the earthy smell of wet clay that caked their fingers. Life was hard, the mother said, stoking the kiln fire, since the death of her husband three years ago. They showed him the pots they were making, and he praised the delicacy of the vessels, the intricate patterns of the decoration, the smooth glaze. They spoke of the wonderful new road the legion was building that would eventually link Noviomagus with Londinium, giving them a much larger market for their pots. No pleasant task to bring the potters the news, but it was his duty. Hot-headed as any man, they’d rebel and reach for the knives before anyone had a chance to stop them. And the Romans would massacre them. He bought a pretty jug for Breca from them, thought again and bought another for Antonia, stowing them both in the saddlebag on Stormfellow.

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